Weird Era

Episode 37: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Mayukh Sen

Mayukh Sen is a James Beard and IACP Award–winning writer based in Brooklyn. His work has been anthologized in two editions of The Best American Food Writing. He teaches food journalism at New York University. About Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America Who’s really behind America’s appetite for foods from around the globe? This group biography from an electric new voice in food writing honors seven extraordinary women, all immigrants, who left an indelible ma...

Episode 36: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Jo Hamya

JO HAMYA was born in London in 1997. After living in Miami for a few years, she completed an English degree at King’s College London and a MSt in contemporary literature and culture at Oxford University. There, she divided her research between updating twentieth-century cultural theory into twenty-first-century digital contexts, and the impact of social media on form and questions of identity in contemporary women’s writing. Since leaving Oxford, she has worked as a copyeditor for Tatler and ...

Episode 35: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Claire Vaye Watkins

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of the short story collection Battleborn and the novel Gold Fame Citrus. She has received the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, Watkins is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and lives in Twentynine Palms, California. About I Love You But I've Chosen...

Episode 34: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Todd Babiak

TODD BABIAK's most recent novels are The Empress of Idaho, Son of France, and Come Barbarians, which was a Globe and Mail Book of the Year and a number one bestseller. His earlier work includes The Garneau Block, which was a national bestseller, a longlisted title for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the winner of the City of Edmonton Book Prize; The Book of Stanley; and Toby: A Man, which was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal and won the Alberta Book Award for Best Novel. Todd Babiak...

Episode 33: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Eli Tareq el Bechelany Lynch

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a queer Arab poet living in Tio'tia:ke, unceded Kanien'kehá:ka territory (Montreal). Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, GUTS, carte blanche, the Shade Journal, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, Room Magazine, and elsewhere. They participated in the Banff Centre's "Centering Ourselves" BIPOC residency, and they were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. You can find their book reviews on instagram @elitareqreads. Abo...

Episode 32: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Brian Evenson

Brian Evenson is the author of over a dozen works of fiction. He has received three O. Henry Prizes for his fiction. His most recent book, Song for the Unraveling of the World, won a World Fantasy Award and a Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction and the Balcones Fiction Prize. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at CalArts. About The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell A sentient, murderous p...

Episode 31: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Rivka Galchen

Rivka Galchen received her MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, having spent a year in South America working on public health issues. Galchen completed her MFA at Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham Fellow. Her essay on the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics was published in The Believer, and she is the recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Galchen lives in New York City. She is the author of the novel Atmospheric Disturbances. About Eve...

Episode 30: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Helen Chau Bradley

Helen Chau Bradley is a writer and musician living in Tio'tia:ke / Montreal. They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons (House House Press, 2020). Their stories and essays have appeared in carte blanche, Cosmonauts Avenue, Entropy Magazine, Maisonneuve Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and elsewhere. About Personal Attention Roleplay: A young gymnast crushes on an older, more talented teammate while contending with her overworked mother. A newly queer twenty-something juggles two i...

Episode 29: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Sruti Islam

Episode 28: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Natasha Brown

Natasha Brown has spent a decade working in financial services, after studying Maths at Cambridge University. She developed Assembly after receiving a 2019 London Writers Award in the literary fiction category. About Assembly One woman. One day. One decision. A blistering, fearless, and unforgettable literary debut from "a stunning new writer." (Bernardine Evaristo) Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Go to college, get an education, start a career. Do all the...

Episode 27: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman is the author of Intimations, a short story collection, and the novel You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Conjunctions, and Guernica, among other publications, and her other writing has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, n+1, and The Guardian. Her work has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf, the Djerassi Resi...

Episode 26: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Michael LaPointe

Michael LaPointe's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and the Times Literary Supplement. He writes the "Dice Roll" column for The Paris Review. His fiction has appeared in The Walrus and Hazlitt. He has been nominated for the National Magazine Awards, the Journey Prize, and the Digital Publishing Awards, and his fiction has been anthologized in Best Canadian Stories. He lives in Toronto. About The Creep: A journalist with a history of bending the facts u...

Episode 25: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Alex Manley and Daphné B

Alex Manley is a Montreal/Tiohtia:ke writer and editor whose work has been published by Maisonneuve magazine, Hazlitt, The Walrus Grain, Vallum, and the Literary Review of Canada, among others. Their debut poetry collection, We Are All Just Animals & Plants, was published by Metatron Press in 2016. @alex_icon Poet and literary translator, Daphné B lives and works in Montreal. She published Bluetiful in 2015 (Les Editions de l'Ecrou), then Delete (L'Oie de Cravan) in 2017, in addition to writi...

Episode 24: LSHB's Weird Era feat. David Demchuk

David Demchuk has been writing for print, stage, digital, and other media for nearly 40 years. His debut horror novel The Bone Mother, published in 2017, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Toronto Book Award, the Kobzar Book Award, and a Shirley Jackson Award in the Best Novel category. It won the 2018 Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic in the Adult Fiction category. It was listed in the Globe and Mail's 100 best...

Episode 23: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Katie Kitamura

Katie Kitamura's most recent novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio Gregor von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. It was named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications and translated into sixteen languages, and is being adapted for film. Her two previous novels, Gone to the Forest and The Longshot, were both finalists for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. A recipient of fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and Santa Maddalena Foundation...

Episode 22: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Sophie McCreesh

Sophie McCreesh is a fiction writer living in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, Hobart, Bad Nudes and elsewhere. Once More, With Feeling follows Jane, an artist navigating her closest relationships while fixating on her own perceived failures and self-imposed isolation. When Jane receives a student grant to attend a workshop in London, England, she sees the opportunity to leave her tedious life behind and start anew, bringing along her new friend Kitty, who Jane will no...

Episode 21: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Beth Morgan

Beth Morgan grew up outside Sherman, Texas and studied writing as an undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence College. She is currently completing an MFA at Brooklyn College. Her work has been published in The Iowa Review and The Kenyon Review Online. About A Touch of Jen Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe...

Episode 20: LSHB's Weird Era Season 1

New to LSHB's Weird Era? Have a listen to this recap of Season 1.

Episode 19: LSHB's Weird Era avec. Daphné B.

Poète et traductrice littéraire, Daphné B. vit et travaille à Montréal. Elle passe beaucoup de temps à lire, à écrire et à regarder des vidéos sur YouTube. Elle a publié Bluetiful en 2015 (Les Éditions de l’Écrou), puis Delete (L’Oie de Cravan) en 2017, en plus d’écrire dans de nombreuses revues (Nouveau Projet, Liberté, Vice, Spirale, Zinc, Estuaire, etc.). Elle a co-fondé la plateforme féministe Filles Missiles et collabore régulièrement à l’émission de radio Plus on est de fous, plus on li...

Episode 18: LSHB's Weird Era feat. PJ Vernon

P. J. VERNON was born in South Carolina. His first book, When You Find Me, was published in 2018. He lives in Calgary with his partner and two wily dogs. “Stylish, smart, and scary as hell.” Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author "A nightmarish white-knuckler." O, The Oprah Magazine Oliver Park, a recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in ag...

Episode 17: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Paul Mendez

PAUL MENDEZ was born and raised in the Black Country. He now lives in London and is studying for an M.A. in Black British Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has been a performing member of two theatre companies, and worked as a voice actor, appearing on audiobooks by Andrea Levy, Paul Theroux and Ben Okri, most recently recording Ian Wright's A Life in Football for Hachette Audio. As a writer, he has contributed to the Times Literary Supplement and the Brixton Review of Books. Ra...

Episode 16: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Brontez Purnell

Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of a graphic novel, a novella, a children's book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018. Purnell is also the frontman for the band the Younger Lovers, a cofounder of the experimental dance group the Brontez Purnell Danc...

Episode 15: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Anakana Schofield

Anakana Schofield is an award-winning Irish-Canadian writer of fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Her previous novels are Malarky (2012) and Martin John (2015). The UK edition of Bina was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. Schofield lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. A provocative, feminist novel about a woman who persists in spite of the violence, injustice, and oppression that fills her world. Bina is a woman who’s had enough and isn’t afraid to say so. “I’m here to warn yo...

Episode 14: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Alice Sparkly Kat

Alice Sparkly Kat is a queer, PoC astrologer. They use astrology to re-chart a history of the subconscious, redefine the body in world, and reimagine history as collective memory. Their astrological work has inhabited MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Hauser and Wirth Gallery. They're friendly, located in Brooklyn, and available for readings in person or by phone at www.alicesparklykat.com. Follow them on Instagram or Twitter at @alicesparklykat for astrology content and ...

Episode 13: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Isle McElroy

Isle McElroy is a nonbinary writer based in Brooklyn. Their debut novel, THE ATMOSPHERIANS, was named a NY Times Editors' Choice. Their second novel, PEOPLE COLLIDE, is forthcoming from HarperVia. Other writing appears in The NY Times, NYT Magazine, The Guardian, The Cut, Vulture, GQ, Vogue, The Atlantic, Tin House, and elsewhere. About The Atmospherians: Sasha Marcus was once the epitome of contemporary success: an internet sensation, social media darling, and a creator of a high profile w...

Episode 13: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Alex McElroy

Alex McElroy (they/them) is a nonbinary writer based in Brooklyn. They received their MFA from Arizona State University and their PhD from the University of Houston. Their writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. The Atmospherians is their first novel. About The Atmospherians: Sasha Marcus was once the epitome of contemporary success: an internet sensation, social medi...

Episode 12: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Larissa Pham

Larissa Pham is an artist and writer in Brooklyn. Born in Portland, Oregon, she studied painting and art history at Yale University. She has written essays and criticism for the Paris Review Daily, The Nation, Art in America, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was an inaugural Yi Dae Up fellowship recipient from the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. She is also the author of Fantasian, a novella. -- Like a song that feels written just for you, Larissa Pham's debut work of nonfiction captures the im...

Episode 11: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Alex and Sruti

Librairie Saint-Henri Store Manager, and Weird Era Co-host and Weird Era Founder and Co-Host, Sruti, sit down and talk about the start of this project, the store's affinity for curation, and what we look for in literature.

Episode 10: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Syan Rose

About Syan Rose: Syan Rose is an illustrator and comic artist whose work plays with both surrealist and representational imagery to approach topics of personal history, politics, accountability, and healing. She’s been published in Bitch, Slate, Gay Magazine, Truthout, and Autostraddle, and has self-produced many comics and zines. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer disabled femme writer and performer of Burgher/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Her most recent titles are the ...

Episode 9: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Marlowe Granados

About Marlowe Granados: Marlowe Granados is a writer and filmmaker. She co-hosts The Mean Reds, a podcast dedicated to women-led films, and her advice column, "Designs for Living," appears in The Baffler. Granados currently resides in Toronto. Happy Hour is her debut novel. About Happy Hour: Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicatingnovel of youth well spent. Isa Epley is all of twenty-one years old, and already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the...

Episode 8: LSHB's Weird Era feat. andrea bennet

About andrea bennet: andrea bennett is a National Magazine Award-winning writer and editor and the author of one book of poetry (Canoodlers, Nightwood Editions) and two travel guides (Montreal and Quebec City, Moon Guides). Like a Boy but Not a Boy is andrea's first book of essays. About Like A Boy but Not a Boy: Inquisitive and expansive, Like a Boy but Not a Boy explores author andrea bennett's experiences with gender expectations, being a non-binary parent, and the sometimes funny and some...

Episode 7: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Hilary Leichter

About Hilary Leichter: Hilary Leichter's writing has appeared in n+1, the New Yorker, the Cut, the Southern Review, and elsewhere. She has taught fiction at Columbia University and has been awarded fellowships from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. About Temporary: In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something,...

Episode 6: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Katherine Angel

About Katherine Angel: Katherine Angel is the author of Unmastered, Most Difficult to Tell and Daddy Issues. She directs the MA in Creative and Critical Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and has a PhD from the University of Cambridge. About Sex Will be Good Again Tomorrow: Women are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women’s desire is often slow to emerge. And men are keen to in...

Episode 5: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Christine Smallwood

About Christine Smallwood: Christine Smallwood’s fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, n+1, and Vice. Her reviews, essays, and cultural reporting have been published in many magazines, including The New Yorker, Bookforum, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine, where she is a contributing writer. She has also written the “New Books” column for Harper’s Magazine, where she is a contributing editor, and been an editor at The Nation. She has a PhD in English fr...

Episode 4: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Francesca Ekwuyasi

About Francesca Ekwuyasi: Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer, artist, and filmmaker born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores themes of faith, family, queerness, consumption, loneliness, and belonging. Her writing has been published in Winter Tangerine Review, Brittle Paper, Transition Magazine, the Malahat Review, Visual Art News, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and GUTS magazine. Her story "Orun is Heaven" was longlisted for the 2019 Journey Prize. Butter Honey Pig Bread, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller ...

Episode 3: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Joni Murphy

About Joni Murphy: Joni Murphy is from New Mexico and lives in New York. Her debut novel, Double Teenage, was published in 2016 and was named one of the Globe and Mail's 100 Best Books of the year. About Talking Animals: A fable for our times, Joni Murphy's Talking Animals takes place in an all-animal world where creatures rather like us are forced to deal with an all-too-familiar landscape of soul-crushing jobs, polluted oceans, and a creeping sense of doom.It's New York City, nowish. Lemurs...

Episode 2: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Lauren Oyler

About Lauren Oyler: Lauren Oyler's essays on books and culture have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, London Review of Books, The Guardian, New York magazine's The Cut, The New Republic, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Born and raised in West Virginia, she now divides her time between New York and Berlin. About Fake Accounts: On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous interne...

Episode 1: LSHB's Weird Era feat. Torrey Peters

About Torrey Peters: Torrey Peters is the author of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker, which are available for free on her website. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She grew up in Chicago and now lives in Brooklyn. About Detransition, Baby: Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations o...